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The AP Herald

THE AP HERALD

From the Asia-Pacific to the world.
Section building out. Long-form Analysis · Policy Briefs · Explainers · Backgrounders · Interviews · Special Reports. Twenty long-form pieces published so far—start here.
Briefing · Asia-Pacific

Asia Trades With Itself More Than Any Region but Europe. It Has No Union to Show for It.

Close to 57% of Asia's trade never leaves Asia—interdependence second only to the EU, built by factories rather than treaty. What the number hides.

Briefing · Asia-Pacific

How Rich Is the Asia-Pacific? It Depends Which Number You Trust.

The center of gravity of the world economy by mass, and both the top and bottom of every human-development table by life. Three numbers that disagree.

Southeast Asia

The Junta's Countdown: Inside Myanmar's 100-Day Gambit

Why Myanmar's latest peace push looks like the last five, and what the July 31 deadline really buys the junta.

South Asia / East Asia

Stranded at the Border: How a Himalayan Flood Exposed Nepal's Chinese EV Boom

What one washed-out trade route says about Chinese EV expansion into small, price-sensitive markets.

Pacific

Locked Out, Logged In: Australia's Under-16 Social Media Ban Meets Reality

Six months into the world's first national under-16 ban, enforcement is tightening, and so is the gap between law and behavior.

Southeast Asia · Security

The Quiet Return: How Japan Is Rebuilding Its Leadership Across Asia

Japan isn't trying to outspend China's Belt and Road. It's building where Belt and Road generally doesn't.

East Asia · Society

From BTS to Semiconductors: How South Korea Turned Pop Culture into Economic Strategy

How Seoul built a policy pipeline underneath what looks, from outside, like spontaneous cultural success.

South Asia

Where Is the World's Football Really Made?

The hand-stitched reputation that built Sialkot is now only half true, and that half-truth is the real story.

Southeast Asia

The Asian Factory Behind Every Goal

Tariffs built to pressure China are, for now, landing hardest on the countries that already left it.

Infrastructure

The $100 Billion Road Across Asia

Connecting Asia by road was never primarily an engineering problem. The frontiers are what keep the map from matching the ground.

Development Finance

A Decade After Its Launch, Has China's AIIB Changed Development Finance?

The bank Washington tried to block now looks, on paper, like an ordinary multilateral lender.

Development Finance

The New Great Game of Development Finance

A lattice of banks that lend to each other's projects as often as they compete for them.

Security · Diplomacy

The Rise of Asia's Strategic Middle Powers

How Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia and India cooperate while avoiding bloc politics.

Technology

Beyond Silicon Valley: Asia's Quiet AI Revolution

The chips, the memory, and an increasing share of the capital all originate in the region.

Trade · Logistics

The Shipping Routes That Built Modern Asia

What a Red Sea detour costs, quietly absorbed into the price of everything that moves through Asia's ports.

Pacific · Security

One Boat, Zero Backups: What HMS Anson's Perth Layover Reveals About AUKUS

Britain sent its available attack submarine to the other side of the world, at a moment its own parliament warned that was hollowing out the fleet at home.

East Asia · Markets

162 and Falling: Japan's Weakest Yen in Forty Years Meets a Prime Minister Who Doesn't Want Higher Rates

Tokyo has spent a record $73.6 billion defending the yen. The currency fell through the defense anyway.

East Asia · Technology

The $576 Billion Bet on a Rice-Farming Province: Inside Korea's Gwangju Chip Gambit

Samsung and SK Hynix are building four fabs in a region government data shows has the country's weakest supplier base.

South Asia · Technology

Twenty-Eight Nanometers, Eleven Billion Dollars: India's Bet on Chips Nobody Else Wants to Make

India's last big semiconductor partner walked away mid-project. This one is betting on nodes a decade behind the frontier—deliberately.

East Asia · Finance

Hong Kong Wants to Be Asia's Fort Knox: Can 250 Tonnes of Gold Get It There?

A government-owned clearing company with a Shanghai Gold Exchange executive on its board. Two prior attempts at this already failed.

East Asia · Security

13,000 Accounts, 860,000 Messages: Inside China's Alleged Campaign to Shape Taiwan's Local Elections

The interference has moved from swaying national elections to shaping who leads a mid-sized county, and now the opposition party too.

Southeast Asia · Technology

Twenty Olympic Pools a Day: Malaysia's AI Boom Runs Into Johor's Water Table

Data centers now draw nearly 200 times more water than ordinary industrial users. Johor told the biggest ones to wait.